Who Dares Wins

by Dominic Sandbrook

  31. The Times, 11 September 1981. Highlights of the debate, or perhaps lowlights, were later shown by Thames Television on TV Eye (10 September 1981): see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBycdYVRUZk.

  32. The Times, 15 September 1981; Guardian, 15 September 1981, 21 September 1981; Pearce, Denis Healey, p. 557; Observer, 20 September 1981; Sunday Express, 21 September 1981.

  33. John Golding, Hammer of the Left: The Battle for the Soul of the Labour Party (2016), pp. 195–6; The Times, 21 September 1981; Daily Express, 21 September 1981; Daily Mirror, 22 September 1981.

  34. The Times, 25 September 1981; Daily Mirror, 19 September 1981; Kogan and Kogan, Battle for the Labour Party, p. 114; Pearce, Denis Healey, pp. 560–61; Benn, End of an Era, p. 151.

  35. Daily Mirror, 24 September 1981; The Times, 26 September 1981, 24 September 1981; Guardian, 26 September 1981, 28 September 1981; Observer, 27 September 1981; and see Golding, Hammer of the Left, p. 199.

  36. Benn, End of an Era, p. 153; Guardian, 26 September 1981, 28 September 1981; Sunday Express, 27 September 1981.

  37. Benn, End of an Era, pp. 153–4; Kogan and Kogan, Battle for the Labour Party, p. 114; Guardian, 28 October 1981; Pearce, Denis Healey, pp. 561–2. For Kinnock, see the interview clip in ‘Comrades at War’.

  38. Pearce, Denis Healey, p. 563; Golding, Hammer of the Left, pp. 198–9; Benn, End of an Era, pp. 154–5; The Times, 1 October 1981.

  39. Ibid.; Healey, Time of My Life, p. 483; Pearce, Denis Healey, pp. 562–3; Golding, Hammer of the Left, pp. 154–5, 162.

  40. Pearce, Denis Healey, pp. 563–4; Westlake, Kinnock, p. 182; The Times, 1 October 1981, 21 September 1981.

  41. Kogan and Kogan, Battle for the Labour Party, p. 116; The Times, 1 October 1981; Guardian, 1 October 1981; Harris, Making of Neil Kinnock, p. 164; Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 231. The Corbyn clip is from the archives of Newsnight: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKNCXxHL_g.

  42. Harris, Making of Neil Kinnock, p. 165.

  43. Observer, 27 September 1981; Mitchell, Four Years in the Death of the Labour Party, pp. 90–91; King and Wybrow (eds.), British Political Opinion, p. 14.

  44. Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 232. See Richard Heller, ‘Tony Benn Was the Leader Labour Was Lucky to Lose’, 17 March 2014, http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/03/17/comment-tony-benn-was-the-leader-labour-was-lucky-to-lose.

  45. Westlake, Kinnock, p. 166; Shirley Williams, Climbing the Bookshelves (2009), p. 297; Guardian, 30 September 1981; Kogan and Kogan, Battle for the Labour Party, p. 119; Benn, End of an Era, pp. 155, 176; Pearce, Denis Healey, p. 563; Jones, Michael Foot, pp. 493–5; Morgan, Michael Foot, pp. 419–20.

  46. Benn, End of an Era, pp. 166–8, 169; Golding, Hammer of the Left, p. 247.

  47. Benn, End of an Era, pp. 174, 177; The Times, 20 November 1981, 17 December 1981; Golding, Hammer of the Left, p. 248.

  48. Foot, Loyalists and Loners, pp. 122–4; The Times, 1 October 1981; Morgan, Michael Foot, p. 390.

  49. ‘MT Diary Note’, 8 November 1981, TFW; Guardian, 10 November 1981.

  50. Daily Telegraph, 9 November 1981; Daily Mirror, 9 November 1981; Golding, Hammer of the Left, p. 297.

  51. Morgan, Michael Foot, p. 390; Daily Mail, 10 November 1981. The ‘oaf and a tramp’ letter has been posted online by Steven Fielding at https://twitter.com/PolProfSteve/status/1032207697503027200.

  52. The Times, 5 December 1981; Guardian, 5 December 1981; Edna Healey, Part of the Pattern: Memoirs of a Wife at Westminster (2006), p. 216.

  Chapter 23. The March of Death

  1. Guardian, 14 December 1979.

  2. Martin Johnes, Wales since 1939 (Manchester, 2012), pp. 385–7; Guardian, 30 January 1980.

  3. Ibid., 11 February 1980, 31 March 1980.

  4. Johnes, Wales since 1939, p. 386; Guardian, 11 February 1980, 24 March 1980; Paul Theroux, The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey around the Coast of Great Britain (1983), pp. 172, 164.

  5. Johnes, Wales since 1939, pp. 255–6; David Torrance, ‘We in Scotland’: Thatcherism in a Cold Climate (Edinburgh, 2009), pp. 85, 38; Theroux, Kingdom by the Sea, p. 312. See also Richard Finlay, ‘Thatcherism, Unionism and Nationalism: A Comparative Study of Scotland and Wales’, in Ben Jackson and Robert Saunders (eds.), Making Thatcher’s Britain (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 172–4.

  6. Johnes, Wales since 1939, p. 298; Rhys Evans, Gwynfor Evans: A Portrait of a Patriot (Talybont, 2008), pp. 391, 394; Torrance, ‘We in Scotland’, pp. 94–5.

  7. Johnes, Wales since 1939, pp. 285, 312–13; Evans, Gwynfor Evans, pp. 397–400.

  8. Guardian, 7 May 1980; Evans, Gwynfor Evans, pp. 408–9, 414–15, 417; Observer, 10 August 1980.

  9. Guardian, 6 August 1980, 11 August 1980; Evans, Gwynfor Evans, p. 420; Observer, 17 August 1980.

  10. Guardian, 1 September 1980; Evans, Gwynfor Evans, pp. 423–4; Johnes, Wales since 1939, p. 311; ‘No. 10 Record of Conversation (MT-Whitelaw-Edwards-Whitmore-Pattison)’, 15 September 1980, TFW.

  11. Guardian, 18 September 1980; Evans, Gwynfor Evans, p. 428; Johnes, Wales since 1939, p. 314.

  12. Humphrey Atkins, ‘Memo to OD Committee: OD (79) 12: Northern Ireland: The Overall Situation’, 5 July 1979, TFW; Henry Patterson, Ireland since 1939: The Persistence of Conflict (2nd edn: Dublin, 2006), p. 253; Jim Prior, A Balance of Power (1986), pp. 203–4, 210; Theroux, Kingdom by the Sea, p. 255.

  13. Ibid., pp. 239, 238, 241, 230–31, 257.

  14. The Times, 29 December 1979.

  15. Daily Express, 29 August 1979; Richard Ingrams and John Wells, One for the Road (1982), letter dated 24 April 1981; Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, vol. 1: Not for Turning (2013), pp. 587–8; Marc Mulholland, ‘The Irish Question in the Thatcher Years’, in Jackson and Saunders (eds.), Making Thatcher’s Britain, p. 190.

  16. ‘Remarks on the Murder of Airey Neave’, 30 March 1979, TFW.

  17. Guardian, 28 August 1979; Peter Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (1997), pp. 227–8; Peter Taylor, Brits: The War against the IRA (2001), pp. 221–3; Mike Jackson, Soldier: The Autobiography of General Sir Mike Jackson (2007: 2008), pp. 158–60.

  18. Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003), p. 220; Daily Mirror, 28 August 1979; Daily Express, 28 August 1979.

  19. Moore, Not for Turning. pp. 482–3; ‘Remarks Visiting Belfast’, 29 August 1979, TFW; Guardian, 25 April 2000; Taylor, Brits, p. 224; Lieutenant General Sir Timothy Creasey to Thatcher, 29 August 1979, TFW.

  20. Taylor, Provos, pp. 202–3, 207, 210; David McKittrick and David McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles (2000: 2001), pp. 118–19, 122–3, 130–31; Patterson, Ireland since 1939, p. 250; Peter Taylor, Loyalists (1999), pp. 157–62; Roy Mason, Paying the Price (1999), p. 206.

  21. McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, pp. 137–8; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 188–91.

  22. Taylor, Provos, pp. 203–4, 220–22; Taylor, Brits, pp. 227–9; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 190–91; Mason, Paying the Price, pp. 200–201; McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, pp. 139–40; and see Thomas Hennessey, Hunger Strike: Margaret Thatcher’s Battle with the IRA, 1980–1981 (Sallins, Co. Kildare, 2014), pp. 15–35.

  23. Humphrey Atkins, ‘Memo to OD Committee: OD (79) 14: Northern Ireland: Law and Order’, 5 July 1979, TFW; Taylor, Provos, pp. 229, 231; Taylor, Brits, pp. 230–31; English, Armed Struggle, p. 194; McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, pp. 139, 141; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, pp. 68–76.

  24. English, Armed Struggle, p. 192; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, p. 69; TNA CAB 128/66 CC (80) 36; PRONI NIO 12/189, ‘Statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’, 24 October 1980; Hansard, 20 November 1980.

  25. Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 599–600; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, pp. 117–18; PRONI NIO 12/196A, ‘The Republican Hunger Strikes: 27 October-19 December 1980’, c. December 1980; Taylor, Provos, pp. 235–6; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 196, 198.

  26. Hennessey, Hunger Strike, pp.
125–6, 136, 150–51, 160; Taylor, Provos, pp. 236–7; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 195–6.

  27. Taylor, Provos, p. 239; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, p. 155; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 607; ‘Speech in Belfast’, 5 March 1981, TFW; ‘TV Interview for ITN’, 6 March 1981, TFW.

  28. Guardian, 6 May 1981; Taylor, Provos, p. 238; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 196–7.

  29. Ibid., p. 196; McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, p. 143; Taylor, Provos, pp. 240–41; Patterson, Ireland since 1939, p. 256; PRONI CENT 1/10/25, Atkins to Francis Pym, 8 April 1981; PRONI CENT 1/10/25, ‘Protests and Second Hunger Strike: Weekly Bulletin No. 7’, c. April 1981; Guardian, 11 April 1981.

  30. Hennessey, Hunger Strike, p. 168; PRONI CIO 12/197A, ‘Record of a Discussion Between the Prime Minister and Mr John Hume’, 13 April 1981; ‘Press Conference Ending Visit to Saudi Arabia’, 21 April 1981, TFW.

  31. PRONI CENT 1/10/36A, ‘Protests and Second Hunger Strike: Weekly Bulletin No. 10’, 7 May 1981; The Times, 6 May 1981.

  32. Daily Express, 6 March 1981; Daily Mirror, 8 May 1981; Hansard, 5 May 1981.

  33. Taylor, Provos, p. 242; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 200–201; Jacqueline McCafferty, ‘Us over Here – Them over There’, in Joan Scanlon (ed.), Surviving the Blues: Growing up in the Thatcher Decade (1990), p. 58.

  34. ‘Speech at Stormont Castle Lunch’, 28 May 1981, TFW.

  35. PRONI NIO 12/197A, D. E. S. Blatherwick, ‘Where Next?’, 1 June 1981; Humphrey Atkins, ‘Memo to OD Committee: OD (81) 33: Northern Ireland Prisons Situation’, 12 June 1981, TFW; ‘MT Meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary’, 8 July 1981, TFW; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, pp. 6–7, 300–329; Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 610–12; Belfast Telegraph, 27 March 2008; and see Richard O’Rawe, Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer That Changed Irish History (Dublin, 2010).

  36. Taylor, Provos, pp. 247–52; English, Armed Struggle, p. 202; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 616; Hennessey, Hunger Strike, pp. 448–53; Sunday Times, 4 October 1981; The Times, 5 October 1981, 7 October 1981.

  37. Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 616–17; English, Armed Struggle, p. 207; Sunday Express, 4 October 1981.

  38. McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, pp. 146–7; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 203, 210; Taylor, Provos, pp. 241–2; Belfast Telegraph, 10 February 2014, 31 January 2017.

  39. Taylor, Brits, p. 240; English, Armed Struggle, pp. 204–5, 224–5; PRONI CENT 1/10/66, D. E. S. Blatherwick, ‘Local Effects of the Hunger Strike’, 17 August 1981; Patterson, Ireland since 1939, p. 256.

  40. Guardian, 22 December 1980, 22 April 1981, 30 August 1979; The Times, 28 October 1981.

  41. John Carvel, Citizen Ken (1984), pp. 162–3; Andrew Hosken, Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone (2008), p. 164.

  Chapter 24. The Commissar of County Hall

  1. The Times, 12 October 1981; Daily Mirror, 12 October 1981; Daily Express, 12 October 1981; Guardian, 12 October 1981; David McKittrick et al., Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 881–2.

  2. Guardian, 12 October 1981; Daily Express, 12 October 1981; Daily Mirror, 12 October 1981; The Times, 12 October 1981.

  3. Ibid., 13 October 1981; Sun, 13 October 1981; Daily Mail, 14 October 1981; Sunday Express, 27 September 1981; John Carvel, Citizen Ken (1984), pp. 95–6.

  4. Ibid., pp. 27, 32; The Times, 1 May 1981; Ken Livingstone, You Can’t Say That: Memoirs (2011), p. 13.

  5. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 37, 39; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, pp. 25, 28, 76.

  6. Ibid., p. 77; Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 40; Andrew Hosken, Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone (2008), pp. 14, 16; Jerry White, London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People (2001), pp. 392–4.

  7. James Curran, ‘Rise of the “Loony Left”’, in James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley (eds.), Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left (2nd edn: 2018), pp. 6–8.

  8. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 177–8; The Times, 1 May 1981; Hosken, Ken, pp. 26–7, 29.

  9. David Kogan and Maurice Kogan, The Battle for the Labour Party (1982), pp. 121–2, 124; Ion Trewin (ed.), The Hugo Young Papers: Thirty Years of British Politics – Off the Record (2008), p. 184; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, p. 130; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 35, 60, 70–72; Hosken, Ken, pp. 73–4; The Times, 9 December 1981.

  10. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 65–6, 70–71, 74–5; Hosken, Ken, p. 59.

  11. The Times, 14 May 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 10, 79–80; Hosken, Ken, pp. 76–7, 83.

  12. Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 10; The Times, 6 April 1981; Daily Express, 30 April 1981, 6 May 1981.

  13. The Times, 8 May 1981, 9 May 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 13, 17–19; Hosken, Ken, pp. 85, 86, 89–90.

  14. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 16, 18–20; Sun, 9 May 1981; Daily Mail, 9 May 1981; Daily Express, 9 May 1981; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, pp. 169–70. Livingstone says this happened on the Saturday. But that is impossible, because Mitterrand was elected on the Sunday.

  15. Andy Willis, ‘Jim Allen: Radical Drama beyond Days of Hope’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 5:2 (2008), pp. 312–15; Guardian, 9 December 1981; The Times, 9 December 1981. On the booming left, see, for example, Martin Walker’s essay in the Guardian, 10 December 1980.

  16. New Statesman, 19 March 1982; New Internationalist, 1 July 1982; and see Colin Fudge, ‘Decentralisation: Socialism Goes Local?’, in Martin Boddy and Colin Fudge (eds.), Local Socialism? Labour Councils and New Left Alternatives (1984), pp. 195–8.

  17. New Statesman, 19 March 1982; New Internationalist, 1 July 1982; Guardian, 5 September 1980, 22 September 1980, 16 March 1982, 23 March 1982; Daily Mail, 17 September 1980.

  18. New Internationalist, 1 July 1982; Guardian, 8 May 1982.

  19. Ibid., 19 February 1981, 25 March 1981, 1 July 1982, 25 July 1984.

  20. Ibid., 6 January 1981; Daisy Payling, ‘“Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire”: Grassroots Activism and Left-Wing Solidarity in 1980s Sheffield’, Twentieth Century British History, 25:4 (2014), pp. 609–10.

  21. The Times, 5 April 1984; ‘Interview with David Blunkett’, in Boddy and Fudge (eds.), Local Socialism, pp. 245–6; Guardian, 18 December 1982, 7 April 1983, 10 January 1983; Payling, ‘“Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire”’, pp. 603, 614; see also the interview with Blunkett in the Guardian, 18 July 1998.

  22. Guardian, 24 April 1981, 10 January 1983, 6 January 1981.

  23. The Times, 5 April 1984; Guardian, 9 April 1981, 25 July 1984; ‘Interview with David Blunkett’, in Boddy and Fudge (eds.), Local Socialism, pp. 254–5; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, p. 212; Payling, ‘“Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire”’, pp. 605, 612; Daisy Payling, ‘City Limits: Sexual Politics and the New Urban Left in 1980s Sheffield’, Contemporary British History, 31:2 (2017), pp. 267–8.

  24. Guardian, 10 January 1983, 6 January 1981; Daily Express, 5 October 1983, 10 April 1981.

  25. Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 51; Hosken, Ken, pp. 38–9; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, pp. 103–4.

  26. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 48, 50–51; White, London in the Twentieth Century, pp. 387–90; The Times, 21 June 1975.

  27. Ibid., 8 May 1981, 9 May 1981; Alwyn W. Turner, Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s (2010), pp. 78–9; Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 24; London Labour Briefing, June 1981.

  28. The Times, 14 May 1981, 18 May 1981, 30 May 1981, 1 June 1981; Guardian, 30 July 1981; Hosken, Ken, p. 114; Daily Express, 26 May 1981; Sunday Express, 31 May 1981.

  29. Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, pp. 178, 1890; Hosken, Ken, pp. 96–7.

  30. Daily Mail, 30 May 1981; Daily Telegraph, 15 June 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 87–8; Hosken, Ken, pp. 97–8.

  31. Private Eye, 5 June 1981; Hosken, Ken, pp. 98, 110; Ken Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It (1987), p. 163; Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, Stick It Up Your Punter: The Uncut Story of the Sun Newspaper (rev.
edn: 2013), p. 155.

  32. The Times, 13 July 1981; Guardian, 16 April 1981; Kogan and Kogan, Battle for the Labour Party, p. 130.

  33. Hansard, 2 June 1981; Evening Standard, 20 July 1981; Sun, 15 July 1981; News of the World, 12 July 1981; Daily Mail, 30 July 1981; and see James Curran, ‘Goodbye to the Clowns’, in Curran, Gabler and Petley (eds.), Culture Wars, pp. 27–30.

  34. Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 162–3; Hosken, Ken, p. 164.

  35. The Times, 23 July 1981; Daily Telegraph, 22 July 1981; Daily Express, 22 August 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 88–9.

  36. Sun, 23 July 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 89; Hosken, Ken, p. 104; Hansard, 23 July 1981; Daily Mail, 24 July 1981; the Standard is quoted in Carvel.

  37. Daily Express, 29 July 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 90; Daily Express, 19 August 1981; Sun, 19 August 1981; Daily Mail, 20 August 1981, 12 August 1981; Hosken, Ken, p. 106; Curran, ‘Goodbye to the Clowns’, pp. 32, 34, 36.

  38. Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 93; Daily Express, 22 August 1981; Daily Mirror, 22 August 1981; The Times, 22 August 1981; Hosken, Ken, p. 104.

  39. Daily Telegraph, 24 August 1981; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 93–4; Observer, 30 August 1981; Daily Express, 31 August 1981.

  40. The Times, 14 October 1981.

  41. Guardian, 14 October 1981; The Times, 14 October 1981; Evening Standard, 13 October 1981; Daily Mail, 12 October 1981, 14 October 1981; and see Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 96–7; Hosken, Ken, p. 158; Curran, ‘Goodbye to the Clowns’, p. 31.

  42. Sun, 13 October 1981; Hosken, Ken, pp. 158–9; Livingstone, You Can’t Say That, pp. 188–90.

  43. Ibid., p. 189; Carvel, Citizen Ken, pp. 124–6

  44. Ibid., pp. 84, 114–16.

  45. James Curran, ‘The Boomerang Effect: The Press and the Battle for London’, in James Curran, Anthony Smith and Pauline Wingate (eds.), Impacts and Influences: Essays on Media Power in the Twentieth Century (1987), p. 121; Guardian, 3 October 1981, 10 October 1981; Observer, 4 October 1981; Daily Express, 8 October 1981; Hosken, Ken, p. 116; Carvel, Citizen Ken, p. 117.